Young, Stupid and Easy to Catch

This is how the first platypus has been described by the Natural History Museum's mammal curator Daphne Hills. Now over 200 years old the juvenile male specimen is deemed too valuable to go on public display, but was recently photographed for an Australian newspaper. The photos give Londoners a chance to look at the animal that was at first dismissed as a fake by British experts who remarked it was:

"impossible not to entertain some doubts as to the genuine nature of the animal, and to surmise that there might have been practised some arts of deception in its structure."

Londonist was intrigued to learn that the platypus is now kept in a sealed box in a cupboard on the third floor of the museum's north-west block, dubbed "The Mammal Tower".

Imagine all the cool stuff that London's museums keep locked away from the likes of us... If the USA ever gets around to liberating us from under the yoke of Emperor Tony then we'll lead the sacking of the museums.

We'd quite like some dinosaur bones to use as a conversation piece at Londonist HQ.